


our shattered hearts (have company to heal)

by Serie11



Series: these broken pieces (can be made into a new whole) [3]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Family, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Fix-It, Friends to Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gen, Growing Up, Heart-to-Heart, Heartache, Hurt/Comfort, Ice Cream, Identity Issues, Kairi Lives, M/M, Minor Naminé/Xion (Kingdom Hearts), Personal Growth, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Recovery, Sora Lives, Vanitas Lives, theyve all got problems with each other BUT they're sorting things out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 23:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18788644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/pseuds/Serie11
Summary: Roxas’s heart sits uncomfortable and heavy in his chest, no longer half of another but a whole by itself. Xion has such a new heart that every emotion pulls at strings she thought she had left behind. Lea has wished for his heart for so long, but possessing it once more does not mean everything he thought it would. Isa can hardly remember what it means to have a heart, long ago memories faded almost beyond recovery.Xion, Roxas, Lea and Isa, post KH3





	our shattered hearts (have company to heal)

 

Roxas sleeps, sleeps, inside Sora’s heart, engulfed in his warmth, safe and hollow. He does not feel or remember anything – until the pieces of his heart are awakened by _her_ voice.

Roxas lights aflame and he is freefalling, diving deep within himself and down to the steep ground below. He lands, Oathkeeper already in his hand, and pushes back his hood.

He will call Xion back if it’s the last thing he does; after being the one to banish her, it’s only right that he be the one to shepherd her heart into the light. She does not belong with their enemy – she deserves to be _herself,_ and no one else.

* * *

 

The final battle is a blur of fighting and hurting and having cure cast over her so many times but her very bones still aching. Xion is not there to see the final blow dealt to their enemy, the mastermind behind even Xemnas, the one who has been controlling things all this time.

She does see Sora, supported by Riku and Kairi, all three of them looking shaken. She sees Terra, bowed under the weight of exhaustion, still managing to walk beside Ventus and Aqua. She feels more than sees the dark aura of Vanitas, always in the leeway side of Ventus’s shadow.

She holds Roxas’s hand and leans against Lea’s side, their presence grounding and reassuring. They see her; they feel her. When Kairi says that they should leave, no one argues. Xion has seen little of this place, but she feels no desire to remain. Leaving the tainted ground behind suits her well enough.

* * *

 

Lea does not join the others in their post-battle celebrations and closeness. He leaves the grime and blood on his skin, and trails a finger across a line of red gone brown and wonders where Isa is now. Somebodies are supposed to reform where they were separated, but he does not know if Saïx’s Heartless has been defeated or not. They will go and check Radiant Garden to see if he is there – if not, they will search for his Heartless. Lea thinks he can already feel it calling to him, somewhere in the worlds. Saïx’s presence has left an impression on him. If anybody will be able to find the corresponding Heartless, it will be him.

He asks Xion and Roxas if they will come with him, and Xion punches his shoulder and Roxas frowns at him. Both of them assumed that they would be a part of the journey, without confirmation needed. Lea resists the tears he can feel forming at the edges of his eyes and wraps them in a hug.

* * *

 

_You are darkness embodied. You have no rage, for you have left that with your body, but you have sorrow, and tears of fire drip down your cheeks and burn you just as much as you burn anything else. You hide from the sun and crave the moon, and even though your wings are pitiful you still try to fly up towards it, as if that will still the hollow shape inside you where a heart used to beat._

_You are nothing and no one, until they come._

_A man of fire and a boy of light and a girl of nothing, adaptable and able to wield whatever she desires. They corner you and their weapons seize you in a sudden fury of hopelessness and despair, and you lash out at them even as they fight back. You are a wisp of shadow leaving trails of fiery tears behind you when you fade into the darkness to spring out to attack, to try and grab them and leech the vitality from their hearts. You seize the one made from light and the other of fire leaps at you._

_The last thing you see is a blade of flame, crashing down to end you._

* * *

 

It’s a long journey back to Radiant Garden. They can still use the Corridors as long as they have their cloaks on, and Xion pulls her hood down lower to shield her eyes. Roxas is leaning on her, heavy, the last blow the Heartless had delivered still weighing on him. She feels no different than normal but her body was always one of a replica. Roxas has already told her that he feels different. Xion had pointed out that it might be his heart, newly whole and sitting inside him, and Roxas had shrugged and just said that he does not feel like he used to.

Axel – no, Lea – is walking on the other side of Roxas, ready to help her catch him if he falls. There’s a lurch in his step as well, gained by hesitating to strike the first blow and catching a full attack in return. Xion aches for him. She and Roxas had no hesitation in raising their Keyblades against the Heartless, but of course it had first struck out at Lea.

Roxas adjusts his grip on her shoulders and Xion looks at him in concern, but he only gives her a small grin. Xion can’t help but return it – she’s here and he’s here and they’re together. For so long, this is all she wanted.

Doggedly, the three of them continue onwards.

* * *

 

Light.

Isa groans, an instinctive response to awakening in such a bright place. He twitches and wriggles uncomfortably at the sensation of having a body again. He feels –

He _feels_ –

He feels his heart stutter, jolt, start, stop, like his body can’t quite remember what to do with it. Like after it being absent for so long his body has grown around it like it might make do with a missing tooth. He claws uselessly at his chest, as if that might make the agony ease – as if it might lift his sudden heavy awareness of his actions, guilt choking and shame rising and disappointment heavy on his tongue. After so long of being empty, of being empty and then full of another’s heart, and then his own person again but for so little time and then Xehanort’s presence pressing down on him, always, always there, with no escape –

He has been pulled apart and put back together so many times that he isn’t quite sure what is original and what got added along the way and what is missing. What is he now? Who is he? His name – he is Isa, no longer Saïx, no longer that mad, possessed thing full of silver and moonlight and rage. He coughs and breathing shouldn’t feel like a revelation but for some reason he laughs, giddy and caught up in his emotions and thoughts, a thousand things at once pouring into his head from his heart.

Slowly, eventually, he stands. He recognises this place as the computer room in the core of the old castle. He knows where people will be. Now all he has to do is muster the strength in his legs so he can reach them.

* * *

 

Lea remembers and does not remember Radiant Garden. So many things have changed since the eternity ago that was his childhood. This world was hit extremely hard by the darkness when it fell – the population had been destroyed, scattered. There are far too many empty buildings. Roxas and Xion do not comment on it. They do not know any different, they do not remember the streets full with bustling people and cheerful markets. Only Lea knows the tug and pull of sorrow and completely pointless anger, storm clouds in his blood. These people have been dead for years. There is nothing he can do about it. He died alongside them, and it is only the whim of fate that left his soul imprisoned in the husk of his body after his heart was ripped from his chest.

He avoids the area where he and Isa used to live.

* * *

 

A man named Leon is with Isa when they find him. Leon discovered him after his recompletion, drained and staggering through the hallways of the castle.

All four of them stand, silent. Isa looks terrible, dark shadows under his eyes, skin sallow. He’s leaning against the table in the middle of the room, and Roxas thinks that’s because he can’t stand on his own. Lea hesitates, takes a half step forward, and hesitates again. Roxas stays where he is, arm thrown around Xion’s shoulders. He does not know Isa.

_(He does not want to know Isa. If he knows him, that means he is like Sa_ _ïx, and Roxas does not want him to be like Sa_ _ïx, if only for Lea’s sake.)_

Lea finally puts a hand on Isa’s shoulder. Isa almost falls into him and Lea’s arms wrap around him tightly. If they say anything Roxas does not hear it, but he sees Isa’s face relax, some type of horrible tension finally flowing out of him. Roxas wonders if he has been carrying it ever since they were transformed into Nobodies.

Lea thanks Leon, and pulls out another coat. Isa’s hands hover over the cloak before he pulls it on, but then all four of them are cowled. Lea opens another portal, darkness twisting around his hand. Roxas steps into it and hopes that Lea has an idea of a safe place where they can rest.

* * *

 

Twilight Town is dusted in its eternal gold, familiar and calming. Lea takes them to the only place he can think of, the old mansion hidden within the woods. It is just as dusty as he remembers, but it is a haven for them to rest, for now. They need somewhere to come to terms with this new reality, all of them existing, tied to no one but themselves. The halls are emptier than they are, hallways aching with unspoken pains and lonely hours. Lea hopes that it has enough space left for them to grow, in between its stillness and silence. Roxas and Xion make stilted conversation between themselves in Isa’s presence, resorting to whispering that Lea cannot hear. Isa is silent, eyes once again a stark cyan but focused off in the far distance, unseeing what is in front of him.

Lea acts as the bridge between all of them, cracking jokes that aren’t as sharp as normal, considerate of everyone’s raw edges. Roxas is tense and Xion is tired but both of them smile at him and he counts that as a win. Isa makes no move to acknowledge that he had even said anything, but neither Isa nor Saïx had been amused by his jokes, so he supposes that’s normal.

* * *

 

Xion trails her hand across titles in the library. They are not as dusty as the rest of this place, and she wonders if it is because they continued to be handled even after the building fell into disrepair or if they were treasured before this place was abandoned. She’d come here to escape the stewing tension between all four of them – they need to talk, but Xion doesn’t know where to start, with any of it. Maybe if she was alone with one of them, she would have a crack to poke at, but she’s alone in this dusty library instead, thinking about the state of her relationships instead of doing anything about them.

Roxas has sharp and painful memories of this mansion but the only thing she associates it with is Naminé’s calm explanation of her existence, her clear eyes and the trust she put in her when she didn’t hold back any details. She will have to thank her, for everything that she did for both her and Roxas. It was at much cost to herself, and gave Xion such a clear understanding of the situation. She knows little of how to navigate intrapersonal relationships, and the situation upstairs makes her heart feel jittery, but something about Naminé makes her feel like even if she does fumble, the other girl will understand.

* * *

 

Roxas knows why Lea took them to Twilight Town, but he still escapes the mansion as soon as he feels like he can be up on his feet. The early morning air is chill across his cheeks, and some spare munny that Lea gave him jingles in his pocket. It’s hardly enough to last them for long, but Roxas knows where he might be able to start getting some more.

Sure enough, the job boards are still there, and he runs around town delivering mail, putting up posters, and taking out some Heartless that were scattered throughout the underground areas. When he’s finished, he has enough to buy them dinner for the night, but on the way back to the mansion, something catches his eye.

It’s nothing like the skateboard he remembers, white with sharp edges of blue, spikes of his own pain. It doesn’t have wings, but he still goes inside the shop and buys it anyway.

The skateboard is sky blue and the design of waves crash along it. Roxas flips it down onto the pavement and as he glides along the streets, he promises himself that in this life, they will make it to the beach.

* * *

 

Isa is glad that the two kids have left – he has enough trouble remembering to breathe without his gnawing conscious taking bites out of him every time he looks at them. He’s still processing, and a sleepless night contending with Lea’s snores has not helped him put his thoughts in order. He’s so twisted up inside, trying to reconceptualise and organise what he did and what he said and what was done to him and what he _allowed_ to be done. He doesn’t know how to look at Roxas or Xion. He doesn’t know how they can be in the same room as him.

He doesn’t know where he stands with Lea, after their years of lies and distance and scheming and betrayal. Lea has been all levity and cheer but Isa still knows enough about him to see a front when it’s right in front of him. They are all performing for each other, and Isa thinks he’s the only one who is wondering when the masks will drop.

* * *

 

Xion had gone to find Roxas and is walking beside him as the two of them return from town, only to look up sharply as Roxas freezes beside her. She swivels but there is no pull inside her warning her to the danger of an approaching enemy – only Roxas’s fast breathing and his posture gone tight.

When she looks up the path towards the mansion, she thinks she might understand why.

Hayner, Pence and Olette are standing outside the mansion gates, arguing over something. They haven’t seen them, but it is only a matter of time until they do. Xion casts a look at Roxas but he is unmoving and unsettled. It hasn’t been a day since they arrived in Twilight Town, but she is still surprised that the three of them have found them so quickly.

“I don’t know… if they remember me.”

The admission hits her like a fatal blow. The fear that snakes around inside her gut, that one day she will look into Roxas’s eyes and see no recognition there, is something he feels too. Xion shakes as she puts a hand on his shoulder.

“You won’t know until you ask.”

Roxas swallows, eyes gone heavy with hurt and regret and fear. Pence looks over Olette’s shoulder and his mouth drops open. Xion giggles a bit, despite the situation, as the three of them turn on the spot and then start running towards them.

“Roxas!”

“Hey buddy!”

“You’re here!”

Xion smiles at her best friend as Roxas’s face twists from dread into a tentative uncertainty.

* * *

 

Roxas shows them around the mansion, even though it is clear they have been here before. They seem puzzled when they see the two hastily made beds in the downstairs library where Roxas and Xion slept last night. Roxas awkwardly explains that they don’t exactly have anywhere else to go. Hayner looks at Pence, who looks at Olette, who is frowning thoughtfully.

“You could always come live with me, if you’d like. My older brother moved out last year, so there’s two spare rooms in my house now.”

“Who’s moving out where?”

Lea leans over the banister from the top floor. He’s still in the Organisation cloak, and Roxas wonders how much of that is because he is still afraid that he will fade without it. He looks pensive at the thought of Roxas and Xion leaving, but the more Roxas thinks about it, the more he suspects it might be a good idea.

* * *

 

Lea stands on the doorstep of a nice, normal looking house and tries not to feel too out of place. In front of him stands a woman with hair the same colour as the girl who lives here. The kids are inside, Roxas calling out to Xion excitedly, that other girl calling them to come and look at this, come and see that.

“Of course they can stay here. They don’t have anywhere else, do they?”

Lea shakes his head once, a sharp movement. This woman’s eyes are piercing, almost as intuitive as Xigbar’s sharpshooter gaze.

“If you would let them stay here, I would really appreciate that.”

“There’s room for three. You need a home too, don’t you?”

Lea’s throat closes. A home is a one story house in Radiant Garden where his brother ruffles his hair and his sister tells him to have a good day before he leaves in the morning, a home is running to Isa’s side on the walk to school, a home is a clock tower and a sunset.

This woman sees too much, too deeply. Lea almost thinks she can see the blood on his hands, the death-count to his name. Axel did those things, but Axel is Lea is Axel, and all of it is tangled up inside him, his heart heavy with the knowledge of his past. He cannot darken this place with his sins.

“I – I don’t need one.”

“But you want one, don’t you? I’m a mother; I can see when someone needs my help.”

Lea holds her gaze for a heartbeat, three heartbeats. She sees him and it makes him see himself. For all the people he knows, he is adept at dodging their gazes and their curiosity. Right now he feels naked, this woman he has never met before seeing through him to his shattered core. He manages to wrench his stare away and musters his discipline to remove all unnecessary thoughts. An ability he cultivated when performing whatever dirty work he had to do for the Organisation. Turns out it’s still useful.

When he looks back, he has closed his heart.

“Thank you, but no. Roxas and Xion staying here is enough.”

She’s disappointed, he realises. She wanted him to agree. But she nods anyway, tells him to come by whenever he wants. Lea calls out to his two friends that he is going back to the mansion, and to come by if they need anything. He cannot stay here any longer, not in front of those knowing eyes, and when he leaves he cannot convince himself he is not fleeing the heavy gaze he can feel on his shoulders.

* * *

 

It is strange, living in a house with normal people. Olette says that she’s on summer vacation right now, which is why she has free time – Roxas tries not to show the anger that rises at those words. Summer vacation. A normal event, that normal people have. Just normal, for everyone else. Not the marker of the end of a life.

Olette has two mothers, and they expect him to eat breakfast every morning and be in bed at a certain time every night. They’re both used to a schedule and expectations, so he and Xion settle in easily. Those few days are a grounding time, a time to accept what is happening now and to finally admit to himself that he does not know how to act around Lea or Isa.

Xion is different – they have always been together, always known as much as the other. So when Roxas apologises for killing her, she apologises for making him do it. Both of them cry, fresh tears from new bodies. But they are healing tears, and Roxas is happy that he is crying, because it means that they understand each other, and now they can move forward.

He can do anything if Xion is standing solid at his side.

* * *

 

The mansion echoes empty now that Roxas and Xion have gone. Even so, Isa appreciates their absence. He does not know what they expect from him and his heart is clogged with far too many emotions when he looks at them. He needs space to recover, and now that he has it he realises how much he had been confined by the expectations he had put on himself due to their presence.

The cracks inflicted on him slowly start to close over. Lea does not expect him to be anything and he knew _Isa_ , before they were Saïx and Axel. Their history is a point of tension and a point of release. What does Lea want from him, now? Isa does not know. He does know that Lea will accept any new developments Isa gives him, because that’s the type of person Lea is. Always rolling with the punches. Isa appreciates that trait more than ever now that he’s the one who doesn’t know where the next hit is coming from.

* * *

 

Xion tries to please the people who own her new house, but nothing she does seems to make the impact she wants it to.

She cleans her room and is praised; she retreats without dinner and is coaxed out; she tries to give them munny and is refused; she tries not to want to use the family computer and is given her own log in, with her own password. She desperately wants to please, wants to fit in, but she feels like everything she does is wrong. She’s trying not to panic, but there’s been no ultimatum offered, nothing told to her that would get her and Roxas kicked out the house. She can’t avoid whatever behaviour that is, because she doesn’t know it, so she tip toes around the house, and tries to touch as few things as she can.

* * *

 

Riku drops by at the end of the week to give them gummiphones. Roxas doesn’t know if he or Riku are more stilted in their conversation. At least they tactfully skate around the fact that Riku was instrumental in Roxas’s death. Xion accepts the two phones gratefully and asks how Naminé is. Riku says she’s settling in; apparently she’s going to be living at Kairi’s house.

There are preprogramed numbers in the phones. Roxas stares at them – one for Riku, Sora, Kairi, Naminé and Ventus. Roxas stares at Sora’s name for too long. Riku catches him staring, and when Roxas meets his eyes something like understanding passes between them. Riku nods slowly. Roxas doesn’t move, but some of the antagonism in him dies. Riku didn’t want to drag him to his death. Roxas knows he would probably do that, and much more, if Xion were in danger again. That anger is still valid, but letting it out on Riku probably isn’t the best recourse. He breathes out, thanks Riku for the phones, says they’ll keep in touch, and actually means it.

* * *

 

Lea feels like they’re all waiting.

Isa is waiting for the crushed pieces of his soul to come within arm’s reach. Roxas is waiting for the right time to admit that he doesn’t particularly want to be around Isa. Xion is waiting until something happens to tear them all apart.

Lea has always been good at reading people. He notes how Isa slowly expands how far he walks each day, how much he reads and how much he cleans. He recognises that Roxas is always keen to meet with him in town, but is reluctant to come to the mansion. He sees the tautness in Xion’s shoulders, the way she tenses when loud noises go off, fingers flexing like she’s half a second away from summoning her Keyblade.

Lea is probably waiting for something as well. Maybe he’s waiting for all of them – for Isa to be able to leave the mansion, for Roxas to decide what he thinks about Isa, for Xion to admit that she’s still afraid of being forgotten. He’s always been a people pleaser. Even in this new life, that at least remains the same.

* * *

 

Isa doesn’t know if he’s adjusting well or not.

Is there a guide to recovering from a broken heart? He would settle for one about a missing heart. He has never been to the mansion that Lea puts them in, and as he becomes more confident in the strength of his body he explores further, taking some of the sheets to wipe away dust and cobwebs. This is as much as he thinks his body can take – it is raw and everything rubs against him roughly. When he is more stable, he will go outside, go into town, meet new people and see new things.  

If he ever feels more stable. Sometimes that feels like an unreachable goal, just out of his reach, tantalisingly close in his memories but far how he feels in every aching, waking, moment.

* * *

 

Xion likes to sit on the rooftop of one of the tall buildings near her house. The crowds in town can get to her sometimes, but generally no one can get up here unless they can high jump. It’s a breath of calmness. She’s so wrapped up in her thoughts that she doesn’t notice Lea sitting down beside her.

“Busy day?”

It has not been. Xion doesn’t know much but she knows the routine of leaving the room where she sleeps, working all day, and then resting in the evening. It’s been the one familiar thing that has kept her going.

She makes herself look at Lea and sees him, for everything he is; the person who had taken Roxas and then her under his wing. The person who had denied the changes that were sweeping over them. The person who had brought her back, for Xemnas to  control and change and send after Roxas for their final fight. Lea’s smile goes a bit sharp, a little bitter. Like always, it’s what he isn’t saying that’s most true about him. At least that hasn’t changed.

“What are we going to do, Xion?”

It’s a question neither of them know the answer to.

* * *

 

They are without purpose, but that is not new to Roxas.

He never knew what the purpose of his work in the Organisation was. Oh, sure, to collect hearts, to create Kingdom Hearts – but that never meant anything to him. He went out and completed missions because people told him to do it, because that was what was expected of him.

When Olette’s mother brings up the topic of school, he doesn’t know what to think. Apparently it’s something everyone his age does. _(How old is he?)_ Apparently it’s expected. Roxas has no idea what school is besides those tattered memories stained with violence and the choking sensation of realising that he is not human.

Xion seems to want to go; apparently Naminé is attending the school on Destiny Islands as well, and they will be in the same grade as her if they go as well. That makes up his mind – if Xion is going, then he is too. He doesn’t know if it’s a purpose or not, but it’s a routine.

He’s used to a routine. It’s easy to fall back into one.  

* * *

 

When Isa has the strength to leave the mansion, the first thing he does is make the painfully long journey to Twilight Town to find a store that sells gardening equipment.

The moonflowers will not show for a time, but he stubbornly plants the seeds anyway. His carefully tends to each prospective plant, sleeves rolled up and barefooted in the dirt, getting his new clothes filthy as he carefully pours water over the garden from a bucket he found.

Lea finds him there, muddy and unrepentant and unable to walk back inside. Isa lets him hoist him up tucks his head against his shoulder and pretends it’s not in an effort to try and touch skin. Lea puts a supportive hand on Isa’s waist and Isa can’t help but _want_ in such a nebulous and confused way. He wants the closeness he and Lea used to share, but he doesn’t think that’s possible anymore, not after all these years, not through all the barriers between them.

When Lea puts him down inside, they meet each other’s eyes. Isa can’t be sure of what he sees there, but it might not be too different from what he’s feeling, after all.

* * *

 

Xion carefully moves through the days and tries to remember each one as they are – something separate, distinct. Roxas had brought them both diaries to write in and she doesn’t know if repeating this task from her past divorces her or binds her to it.

She hesitates when she goes to write in it. What should she even say? Who is she, what has she decided to do with herself? What is she doing to make it worth the effort to bring her back? She and Roxas seem to have befriended all the locals who often offer jobs, and Olette’s mothers tell them that they’re impressed with their work ethic. She doesn’t even know that means. She works because she knows how to do it, and because Oblivion fills her hands with a heavy weight of responsibility, and because she doesn’t know how else to be useful in this household. Not that Olette’s mothers accept the munny she tries to give them, anyway. She and Roxas have been storing it in Xion’s bedside table. Neither of them are particularly sure what to do with it, but the thought of not working sends a cold chill down her spine. If she’s not working, she’s not being useful. 

She has to be useful.

* * *

 

Lea is there when the two kids go off on their first day of school, pulling at their uniform collars and their new bags full of empty books waiting to be filled. He doesn’t know how to feel, really. He wasn’t able to finish school, the fall of his world putting all thoughts of it out of his mind. He doesn’t want to go back, but he’s a little wistful, maybe, over what could have been. Who he could have been.

But instead he waves at them as they chase after their friends who have come to escort them and lets them go to discover all the good and bad things about a classroom. He has no doubt that both of them will be able to adapt quickly to the new environment. Trauma has driven those instincts deep into them, and he doesn’t think they’ll ever be able to quite weed them out. And just like them, he has things he cannot remove from his soul either, things that would make going back to school impossible for him. He has done too much, seen too much, to go back to that normalcy. But he wishes them well with all his heart, and it warms him that he can think that.

* * *

 

Roxas chases Xion down the path to the Old Mansion, excitement thrumming through him. Classes had been strange, and having adults seem to genuinely want to help him was stranger, but it hadn’t been impossible. Once things had been explained to him, he’d been able to do it – exhilarating, to be handed a task by an authority figure and excel at it. Also, he thinks some of Sora’s math knowledge had been transferred to both him and Xion, because there’s no reason he can think of otherwise that they would know what _algebra_ is.

They burst through the front door, Xion calling out Lea’s name. They tear up the stairs, ready to report on the new world of school, only to find Isa, not Lea. He’s standing against the barrier of the stairs and Roxas thinks he looks tired, even now. But he’s standing on his own, and is wearing new clothes, so he’s better than he was.

“Lea went out – I assume you want to talk to him about today?”

Roxas nods, Xion suddenly silent beside him. Isa flounders for a second in the face of their combined front, but then shakes his head slightly and centres himself.

“He isn’t here… but I would be willing to listen, if you two would still like to talk.”

Roxas looks at Xion, looks at Isa. This quiet man is not who he remembers and he has to remind himself that it’s a good thing he isn’t. Just because he looks like Saïx doesn’t mean he is Saïx. His cyan blue eyes are biggest giveaway and Roxas latches onto them. Xion nudges him with an elbow, a silent _you lead_ , and it makes up his mind.

“You know that means you’re going to hear it all twice, cause we’re still gonna tell Lea, right?”

The corner of Isa’s mouth twitches up.

* * *

 

Isa listens to Roxas and Xion and tries not to seethe.

All of this was taken from him – school and friends and time spent in summer holidays, with ice cream sticky hands and joy in his heart. All that, stolen away with a few decisions that others had made. If only Ansem the Wise had not sought to find what could not be found – if only Xehanort had not twisted himself close into the research to spread his poisonous touch. If only he and Lea had been less curious, less outraged at rumours of prisoners in the castle –

But then they would be dead.

Isa suspects that proximity to the Heart of the world is what preserved their bodies. He still bites and chews and screams at the wasted time, those years spent with another rooted in his heart, but even that he recognises as pointless. It is time gone, time spent, time behind him. He cannot go back. Only forward.

* * *

 

Roxas scopes the back streets of Twilight Town, learns the twists and turns and additions and subtractions and differences. He skates by himself mostly; Xion is still learning and Lea told him that he’s not a ‘skater boy.’ So he’s alone when he sees Isa, buying groceries but obviously forgetting that he’s by himself and can’t carry ten bags alone.

Roxas hesitates in the shadow of one of the apartment buildings as he sees Isa try and pick up five bags in each hand. He’s on the edge, teetering, when one of the bags splits and its contents fall on the ground.

He can’t leave after that. So he approaches Isa awkwardly and grabs most of the bags and skates off with them in his hands, leaving Isa behind without saying anything to him. Even if he’s willing to help, he’s not willing to _talk_ ; not now, maybe not ever.

He leaves the bags outside the entrance to the mansion.

* * *

 

Xion visits the old mansion, and Roxas does not.

She thinks it’s because there is too much he wants to avoid stuffed inside those walls; Naminé’s white room that Xion has sent her pictures of, the basement and the gleaming beacon of light that leads to the digital Twilight Town. Isa maybe most of all, eyes different but mostly everything else the same.

Xion doesn’t know what to think of Isa. He is not Saïx, and that is obvious just interacting with him. He is quiet, nonthreatening where Saïx would have been full of fury. She sees how his weakness bothers him, how he scratches at the scar on his face, how he follows Lea’s every word. She doesn’t think she can forgive him. She thinks he might deserve her forgiveness.

She keeps her distance; but not too far. She’s still deciding.

* * *

 

Lea spends his time rotating between worlds – checking on Kairi, ghosting through his old neighbourhood. No enemy is a real threat to him, not when he can open a Dark Corridor and go through it in half a second. His Keyblade and his chakrams are the closest things to him as he comes to grips with his heart.

He wants to be with Roxas and Xion and Isa. He wants to be with Kairi and Sora and Naminé. He doesn’t want to be with any of them. He wants some peace and quiet, some time where his heart isn’t dumping new thoughts and emotions into his head. He got so used to being _quiet_ as Axel – Axel was a deadly silence, death brought before you even knew it was there.

Axel was empty.

Lea is bursting full of thoughts and emotions and desires, he’s always _wanting wanting wanting_. More and more and more, to jam in alongside everything else he’s feeling. Distancing himself from others, patrolling and exploring other worlds, sometimes feels like the only breaks he gets from himself.

* * *

 

Isa remembers to breathe again.

They never had to eat as Nobodies; they slept, but sometimes Isa thought they didn’t have to do that either. Or maybe that was just him, poisonous fuel running through his veins as the shard of Xemnas inside him thrummed to its own rhythm, his own irrelevant.

Here he sleeps, and he breathes, and he eats, and he struggles towards what it means to be human again.

* * *

 

This is a fact about Lea: he is not always Lea.

Axel lurks in the corridors of his memory and he should be able to chuckle at the irony but his dreams of fire and death, of being emotionless and hollow, only leave the slimy taste of fear at the back of his throat. Because Lea was Axel, Axel became Lea, Lea turned into Axel, Axel was Lea is Lea, Lea was Axel is Axel.

He thinks – he thinks that the worst part of it all is that near the end of that time he was imprisoned in his own body, Roxas and Xion almost drew him out of the broken shell. He laughed and he cried, and Axel sat on a clock tower with his two best friends and Axel was the one who fought for and against Xion and Roxas. Axel was the one who sacrificed himself for Sora, putting too much effort into his last few actions because he hadn’t wanted to exist with the putrid knowledge that he was dead inside and out, knowledge that he had shoved into the corners of his mind until their smiling faces had brought it all horribly, unmistakably, back.

_(Could the cold and brittle thing he was have a friend? Was he even capable of having a friend? He had the remnant of Isa right next to him but he shunned him, he had the other people of the Organisation who didn’t have shards of Xehanort’s heart inside them but he rejected them as well. Only the blank slates of Roxas and Xion could make him give a shit, because he thought they wouldn’t need much thought at all before he could throw them away too. But they wormed their way under his skin, snuck in when he wasn’t watching, warmed the space where his heart should have been. They’re too good for him. He’s a bad influence for them.)_

He has more memories of his time as Axel than of being Lea. He’d tried to ignore the fact that he had a past, tried to forget everything because any comparison to what he had become was painful enough to break through his chill existence. But that slight bleedover near the end almost does him in some nights, because he almost feels the same now as he did then. Is he Lea? Or is he still Axel, and he’s fooling them all, even himself? He’s never been one to dwell on such things but this haunts him, the spectre of himself hanging over his head, fire where his eyes are supposed to be.

He’s so unsure of who he is anymore.

* * *

 

This is a fact about Roxas: sometimes he kind of hates Sora.

They text, Sora’s peppy conversation starters answered with Roxas’s slow replies, painstakingly thought out and agonised over, which are then responded to within a few minutes. He tries not to feel like Sora is mocking the hours he spends looking at his words, rearranging phrases and sentences until he presses send and then immediately regrets it.

Some days he takes too long to press send, and Sora will say something else, and Roxas has to decide whether or not to reply to the old message, or the new message, or both of them, or just throw his gummiphone out the window so he doesn’t have to think about this anymore. Does Sora think he doesn’t care? Does he think he ignores his messages? Some days Sora is the only thing he thinks about and it’s like the old times all over again, Sora lurking just out of his direct vision, in the very corner of his eye, present and unknowable. Roxas tries not to feel like Sora is disdainful of him, because he’s met the guy and he’s certain he isn’t, but sometimes it’s hard. Sora makes texting seem so easy; relationships, so easy; _existing,_ so _easy_.

He tries not to be bitter, even though his name belonged to Sora and his Keyblade belonged to Sora and his heart belonged to Sora and everyone seemed to think he _owed_ Sora, just for the crime of existing in the first place. His heart is free but he still swings Oathkeeper, and his name is still a derivative of Sora, just like his whole existence. He has paid his debt to Sora and he should feel free of him but he isn’t. Even now, he can tell that they’re connected, a shimmer of something that lets him know when a new text is about to arrive for him even before his phone chimes.

He aches and he bites and he thrashes, but he is fighting against nothing but himself since Sora is no longer his captor. Roxas still doesn’t know how to act around him, towards him. What are they now?

* * *

 

This is a fact about Isa: he has trouble going outside at night.

The light of the moon used to be his favourite thing but now it scalds him, a reminder of what he used to be, and the only real memory he has of the moment Xemnas carved his sigil onto Isa’s face. He knows what led up to that moment – he and Axel’s plotting, Xemnas finding out about their disobedience, his threat to end them on the spot. Saïx wrangling them into a tenable position by vowing himself, his body and the remnants of his soul, to Xemnas’s cause. Xemnas’s cruel smile, Axel’s silence. There had been enough of a speck of feeling inside him to volunteer himself, enough panic driven by some shard of emotion he couldn’t identify.

Xemnas had agreed, and Isa thinks that Saïx hated Axel a little bit for that, for making him feel something when they were supposed to be emotionless. Like always, he had looked to the moon for strength, and strength it had given him as he made himself kneel, as Xemnas carved into his skin. He had been still and silent and had only looked at the cat claw sickle of the moon and had not flinched, had not moved, had not resisted at Xemnas’s achingly slow movements. Even as Saïx, even lacking his heart, he would do anything for Lea – or the broken shell that Lea had left behind.

The lines of his scar are perfectly straight.

* * *

 

This is a fact about Xion: she wants to be more than she is.

Even saying that assumes that she knows where she’s starting from, and she doesn’t. She has no funny stories to share over the dinner table like Olette’s family does, she has no memory of where she learned how to read and write and do basic math and why she can answer questions at school, she doesn’t know where her thoughts came from, how her personality was shaped. Did it just come into being as she sucked Sora’s memories away from Roxas, or did Vexen plant it in her, her daring and her stubbornness and her fear? She doesn’t know. She doesn’t _know_.

She wants to be able to make her friends laugh, she wants to be able to support herself, she wants to be able to travel the worlds again, setting things right because that’s what _she_ wants, not because she’s been told to. Roxas still has anger burning under his skin and Isa is still so cautious and Lea just wants everything to turn into some semblance of normal and Xion doesn’t even know what she wants, what she desires and what she’s allowed to desire. Is dreaming about a small home base for her, Roxas and Lea okay? Is it okay to want to talk to Sora and Riku and Kairi and Naminé in person alright, or does she have to settle for texting them? Now that she has her own Keyblade, who is she supposed to approach for training to become a Master? Is there anyone, or is that something forever out of her reach?

She aches for these things, wants them deeply and desperately. She never ‘grew up,’ she never had the chance to learn and explore and figure out what she can have. She wants to be more than she is, but she doesn’t know what she is at the moment, let alone what she _could_ be.

Xion can only think and wonder and ask, well, what do I _want_ to be?

* * *

 

 “Why do you even keep coming out and visiting us, anyway?”

“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean? You live here; that’s a good enough reason.”

“…right.”

“That doesn’t sound very convincing.”

“You should be happy without having to come out here and be reminded of your past. You have a home and friends and you’re living with Roxas and you’re going to school and you’re being normal! Why aren’t you satisfied with that?”

“I know it’s not all I can have, and I want it all! We suffered, Lea, for too long; we were twisted and bent and broken into shapes that pleased others and not ourselves and I’m sick and tired of it! I want to be free – I want to visit you and eat ice cream with you and be friends again, because we want to, not because we have no other choice. What don’t you understand about that?”

“…Xion, I – I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Be a better friend.”

* * *

 

“Roxas… If you’re looking for Lea, he’s in town looking for work.”

“Oh.”

“…”

“…”

“Roxas, I –”

“Stop… just, whatever you’re going to try and say, just stop.”

“… we can’t avoid each other forever.”

“Fine. You wanna talk? Fine. I’ll talk and you listen.”

“…”

“I don’t know how to act around you. I’ve always ran away from what I couldn’t face, but I’m sick and tired of avoiding Lea, and I’m tired of stressing about how to act around you! You never respected Xion… and you never respected me. Even when I tried to leave, you tried to stop me – you thought you could! You never bothered to learn anything about me, and I guess I never bothered to learn anything about you, because now I can’t tell what’s different and what’s the same and what was you and what was Xemnas. I’m tired of it. Lea trusts you, but Lea sees what he wants. After everything you did to us… after what you did to Sora! How am I supposed to forgive you? How am I meant to trust you?”

“I admit, there is little excuse for my actions… I was hurting for a long time. Lashing out at you and Xion was not the appropriate response. I can only apologise for my actions. Roxas, I _am_ sorry for the hurt I caused you.”

“…whatever.”

* * *

 

Roxas storms to the Usual Spot and when Pence asks him again about to explain everything he finally does. It spills from his lips, hot and toxic and painful but he’s already so full of fury he feels like he’s going to explode. He can feel flashes of light threatening to spark off his skin, and after his hurried dump of an explanation he tears out of the Usual Spot, ignoring Hayner’s call for him to wait.

He takes the star train to the Mysterious Tower and he demands a room full of enemies, things he can rip into and be fearful for his life. The Tower rumbles but obligingly spits out a doorway and Roxas summons Oathkeeper as he enters.

The Nobodies inside stand no chance. He no longer wields Oblivion but he knows more than he ever has, knows how to call balls of light to circle around him and explode on impact, knows how to twist in mid-air, knows how to glide and how to strike and how to let the rage inside him froth up and how to unleash it.

The Dusks are an afterthought of his strikes; Assassins are a joy to rip out of the ground. He tears the Beserkers apart, flashes through the air to destroy the Dragoons, dismantles Gamblers in one hit. When the room finally stops giving him things to hit he lies on the ground and pants, and thinks, and squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to think.

When he opens the door to leave, Riku is on the other side. The older boy looks pensive, but before Roxas can strike out at him too, he puts a hand on his shoulder and suggests that they talk. Roxas shrugs it off but goes with him. After all, if Riku says something he doesn’t like, he can always let out some more steam by goading him into a fight, too.

* * *

 

Lea comes back and Isa tries not to show his discomfort but he picks up on it almost immediately. Isa reluctantly tells him about Roxas’s visit; Lea purses his mouth thoughtfully.

And Isa finally, finally, tells him what he’s been thinking about for weeks. His anger at the years that were stolen from them; his rage at their Nobodies and how they pushed each other apart; his hatred of the circumstances they forced Roxas and Xion into and his role in that; his despair at their current circumstances; his desire to be close to Lea again; his grasping lack of knowledge that has seemed to prevent that. Lea tries to interrupt him several times but Isa refuses to stop now that he’s started, refuses to look at Lea until he’s spoken his mind. When he falls silent he can feel Lea’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t react until Lea wraps his arms around him tightly.

Isa can only bury his head into Lea’s ridiculously gangly frame and refuse to acknowledge the tears dripping down his cheeks. Lea smooths a hand over his hair and tells him that they cannot regain the years behind them; they cannot change the actions of their past; they can only decide what they’re going to do with their future. He puts a hand over Isa’s heart and both of them listen to the comforting _thump thump_ it makes. Lea swipes a finger under his eye, jokes about how Isa needs his tear-protection marks; Isa tells him that Lea is more than enough of a protective charm.

Lea kisses him and for the first time in twelve years Isa feels human again.

* * *

 

Xion goes to the mansion after she can’t find Roxas, and finds Lea and Isa tangled up in one another, tired and weary. Lea takes her to another room and explains; Xion goes back to face Isa.

There are shadows under his eyes but he no longer looks like he’s about to fall apart. Xion faces him and purses her mouth and says: you were the face of our enemy, but never the enemy itself. Saïx had always antagonised her, always known where to bite and make it hurt, but she had never hesitated to fight back because she knew there was no _real_ danger from him. He was Xemnas’s tool, and she’d always known that Xemnas would unmake her himself.

Roxas never made that distinction, and she can’t blame him. Isa’s face is drawn as she says: this is a fresh start, for all of us, and we should make the most of it. Xion is willing to let the past gather dust, because so much has changed, and even though they are all still here, they are all so different.

Xion looks Isa in the eyes, blue to blue, and says: we have a new path in front of us, if we’re willing to take it.

* * *

 

Riku takes him outside to where the starlight glows as brightly as any sun, and asks Roxas if he wants to talk. Roxas bristles, anger brimming, but then he breathes it out, exhales. Riku is not the target of his ire, and he’s better than taking it out on him.

Riku is a good listener. He lets Roxas snarl and gripe and when he’s done he puts his hand on his shoulder and tells him that he is not alone in coming back and not knowing what happens next. Roxas sullenly listens to Riku’s quiet explanation of his own problems, of Sora’s problems, of Kairi’s problems. None of them are whole, but Riku says they have enough eyes between them to spot all the pieces lying on the ground. A mended pot can be made out of shattered pieces.

* * *

 

Xion lets the wind ruffle through her hair as she waits at the train station. She’s been tasked by Lea and Isa to walk Roxas home, and it’s been hours but she’s still waiting. She’s been through harsher trials than this.

The starlit train finally pulls into the station and when Roxas steps out he is pensive, eyes turned downcast, gloom shimmering around him almost visibly. Xion takes his hand silently and leads him up to the place she found that is high but isn’t the clock tower, and leaves him there while she goes and buys ice cream.

Roxas is still quiet as they eat the ice cream together, watching the never ending sunset. Finally, he sighs and tells her that he’d had it out with Isa; Xion gently tells him that she knows. The slight breeze ruffles their hair as Roxas mumbles out his worries, and Xion takes his hand in hers and tells him that he’s allowed to feel this way, and that she doesn’t know what to do about Isa, either. She tells him that they have time; that they’ll figure things out, together.

Roxas smiles at her, and Xion smiles back.

* * *

 

They are fractured and crumbling but even though the tide washes away the beach, the beach perseveres, builds itself back up. Lea holds Isa and Roxas and Xion and watches as all of them slowly get used to things as they are now, this new existence they have.

Roxas skateboards more. Xion and Naminé start hanging out regularly, and Xion tells him about the friends she’s making at school. Isa cleans the inside of the mansion and takes care of his garden. Lea teases them all, inflicts food and gifts upon them, and tries to find a measure of peace within himself. He was waiting, waiting for so long, holding his breath for so long that he forgets how to breathe now that he’s on the surface. But now he can finally exhale. He can finally just _exist._

Air has never tasted so good.

* * *

 

Kairi tells them that they are welcome to come and visit the Destiny Islands any time they like; Xion says that she wants to see more of the town there, and Roxas agrees because she doesn’t mention the small island that haunts his dreams sometimes.

When they arrive, the person they see is not Sora or Riku or Kairi but Naminé, the calm girl calling out to them in welcome. Roxas feels a creeping of relief; the first time he is here he can get his bearings, figure out how he feels about this world without Sora’s presence hovering over his shoulder.

Naminé shows them the beach, tide pools, crabs and starfish, markets in town, a sunset that fades into night, and drawings she’s sketched, which they complement outrageously. Xion and Naminé smile at each other and Roxas thinks he sees something deeper in their shared expression.

When they leave, he feels confident about coming back.

* * *

 

Xion never knew Olette, but she is kind and approachable and helps Xion with her homework and makes her smile and makes her new heartbeat speed up. Olette is dating a girl from school, Penelo, and Xion always makes sure she is not in the house when Penelo comes over. It’s strange and twisty and she doesn’t understand it and Roxas doesn’t either when she asks him about it.

Olette sits down next to her one night after Xion had fled the house yet again, throat heavy with something that made it hard to breathe. Olette carefully takes her hands and says it’s okay to be unsure and to not know how she feels, but that she should face it head on to try and understand it.

Xion stutters out an explanation of her queasy stomach and the flush that always seems to make its way across her cheeks and why she doesn’t really like Penelo but she doesn’t really have a reason _why_ and Olette sits there and laughs. Xion stares at her, unsure what that means or how to feel, because Olette had been so genuine and accepting – and her laugh seems so good and kind.

“Xion. What you’re feeling – it’s okay. All it means is that you might have a little crush on me, and that you’re a bit jealous of Penelo. That’s fine, that’s normal.”

Xion stares at her, then carefully bites her lip and asks what a ‘crush’ is.

* * *

 

Lea thinks he might be finding the edges of who he is, slowly, carefully. He meditates and doesn’t let the kids catch him at it because they would never let him hear the end of it. And sure, he falls asleep most of the time when he does it, but when he’s just sitting there and thinking, he has little revelations about himself, things that maybe he wouldn’t have realised otherwise.

Axel would not have meditated. Axel would not have brought Isa new seeds for his garden just because he saw them on sale at the market. Axel would not have cared about Ventus or Terra or Aqua, but Lea checks in with them every now and again.

Lea keeps his Organisation cloak at hand for when he wants to go off-world, but it’s slowly becoming just another piece of clothing, just something to wear so he doesn’t have to worry about the darkness in the corridors eating away at him.

After all, Axel couldn’t go outside and fall asleep in the sun with only a tank top and shorts on.

* * *

 

Roxas takes the books that school wants him to read and devours them; he takes the books on the shelves at home and pours over them, sitting in his bedroom with the bedside table light on, squinting over the black and white print; he takes one look at the Twilight Town library and picks up the first book he sees and sits down and starts reading.

So much has been kept from him, and so much has been done to him, and he will not go into future scenarios uninformed and unknowing and not able to make choices about who he will be and what actions he will take. He makes the moon train and take him to Yen Sid’s Tower where he _demands_ to be given books that will tell him about the worlds, about Keyblades, about Heartless and Nobodies and replicas and hearts and minds and souls. Yen Sid tells him that there is a library in the Tower that he is welcome to, but that he should approach Master Aqua for formal instruction.

Roxas goes to the Land of Departure and stands in the middle of the big courtyard and faces down Aqua, who has come to see who has arrived in her domain, and insists he be taught.

Aqua slowly smiles at him, more teeth than he thinks is normal, but welcoming nonetheless.

* * *

 

Isa gardens, and thinks, and cleans, and ponders.

It’s more than dusting, or debating Lea on which curtains are the best for the least amount of munny. He feels like with every room he deems habitable, he’s shelved another year of painful memories, tidied up a tangle of emotions. Lea has no patience for any of it so most of his time is spent outside, but Isa appreciates the hard work and the slow restoration of this mansion. He oils the banisters and sorts out the readable books from the mouldy ones and restores his own soul alongside the objects.

* * *

 

Xion goes with Roxas one time to visit the Land of Departure, and they meet Vanitas first, the teen hanging out in the front courtyard, dangling his legs over the side of the wall there.

There’s a creeping darkness in Vantias that reminds Roxas of the World That Never Was. It’s ominous and ever-present and only a danger if you don’t respect it. Even though Vanitas has no Keyblade, Roxas still watches his step around him.

Vanitas jumps off the wall and ruffles Xion’s hair and Roxas doesn’t need to make himself respect Vanitas, when Vanitas earns that all on his own by detailing his latest plan to prank Ven.

* * *

 

Isa cuts himself on one of his gardening tools and Lea mumbles curses under his breath as he tells Isa to put it under some water as he searches for something to act as a bandage. In the end he tears up one of the new shirts that he bought and wraps that around Isa’s hand, studiously making sure that it’s bound carefully. Isa flinches slightly as Lea tightens it and Lea tells him to hold still; he looks up and Isa’s eyes are so clear and so focused on him that his heart almost stops beating altogether.

After a thousand years Lea clears his throat and does the final knot on the bandage, and tells Isa not to be so careless in the garden. He’s sure he’s imagining the huskiness in Isa’s voice as he promises to do so.

* * *

 

He still can’t quite stand going out at night, but it’s getting easier. Isa tries to spend a few minutes outside in other worlds, where moonlight can speckle his skin, before he flees once more to Twilight Town, where the welcoming dusk never fades.

It’s another part of his recovery. He’s taking it seriously, but he also recognises that it takes _time._

* * *

 

Xion gradually falls into home life. It’s a pattern, it’s comforting, and Olette’s mother’s never punish her for anything. When she finally out and asks them what would get her and Roxas kicked out of the house, they almost seem horrified; apparently just existing and needing a home protects them against most actions they could commit.

That almost stumps her. For so long, her worth was decided by what she could do, what she could contribute. To have her worth decided by an intrinsic piece of who she is – that stuns her to silence. The two older women share a glance between themselves, and then wrap her in a hug, and Xion only cries a little bit.

She’s valuable, just by herself.

* * *

 

He asks, one day, what Sora knows of the time he spent sleeping in that pod in Twilight Town, what he knows about what happened, what he knows about that mess of anger and resentment and understanding that lies between him and Riku, between him and Axel, between him and Sora.

And Sora knows – nothing.

Roxas burns, with anger and resignation and bitterness. After all he has been through and all he has given and all he has lost, Sora still does not know the bare bones of his foundations, the reason for his strength and his smouldering rage that he can only just keep in check.

It does not bring him pleasure to tell him _(oh, but it does feel good to rip into Riku with his words, hurting him in a way his Keyblade could never)_ and when he is finished Sora has his back to him, silent. Roxas stands his ground until Sora turns, fat tears dripping down his face. He takes Roxas’s hands and he is reminded of their meeting in the realm of sleep – but this time Sora will remember what he tells him. Sora apologises to him and Roxas feels his words settle on top of his collarbones, into the crevices of his soul.

It is not everything he needs, but Sora deserves to know the truth. Enough things have been kept from him already, and Roxas knows what it feels like to be left in the dark, scrabbling against an enormous unknown. So he does it for both of them – Sora, because he does not deserve to live with the lie, and Roxas, because he does not know if he could look at himself in the mirror if he kept this from him.

* * *

 

Lea has a question for Master Aqua, and he takes the kids out on a field trip to the Land of Departure with him because it’s a weekend and it lets them have a break from school. While he and Aqua talk, Roxas and Xion run off to find Ven or Vanitas. Just as they’re wrapping up, Lea hears a muted explosion, and Aqua’s expression turns exasperated.

They find the four of them covered in mud. Ventus and Vanitas cheerfully explain their project and what went wrong, while Xion tries not to giggle and Roxas tries to get mud out of his eyes. Lea smacks his hand against his forehead and tells Aqua that she can call him for a drinking session whenever she likes.

 

Xion navigates her blossoming relationship with Naminé carefully; after Olette had explained ‘feelings’ to her, she’s aware of the fluttering in her stomach that only happens whenever she sees Naminé. She invites the other girl over to Twilight Town as often as she can, and they hang out together, with Roxas, with Olette and Hayner and Pence, with Lea and Isa. Xion had thought that she had an awareness of her emotions after being brought back, but Naminé shows her that she’s still learning, and that there’s a big, wide world out there for them to explore, together.

* * *

 

Isa is dragged along to one of Lea’s crazy ideas, which is dinner at the famous place in Twilight Town, along with the blue haired woman and the man who shares Xemnas’s face.

He’s been told that Terra remembers nothing of his time possessed, and vividly hopes that is true; Isa’s own recollections are horrible enough that he would wish them on no one else. Dinner is loud with Lea there to drive the conversation, and Aqua peppers the area with her laugh. Half way through dinner, Lea sneaks his hand under the table to squeeze his, and Isa finally relaxes.

It’s strange. He’s been avoiding people, but these people already know everything that he was, everything that he did. He does not need to pretend to be anything else than what he is with them. And if he’s still figuring that out; well, he thinks they are too.

* * *

 

Ven visits Twilight Town semi-regularly, and Roxas gets used to being mistaken for his ‘twin’ around town. When Ven is with them, the shopkeepers coo over how cute they are as they’re buying ice cream, and Ven will grin back widely, cuter than anything Roxas knows to compare him against. In between Ven’s visits he twists his face in the mirror, tries to make himself smile just like Ven does. Even though they share the same face, he can never quite get it just the same.

He figures that’s alright. After all, he and Ven aren’t the same person, just like he and Sora aren’t the same person. Roxas’s smiles are smaller, softer, rarer, but just as genuine.

* * *

 

One day a dog follows Xion home; and while Olette is allergic to them, Xion insists that he stay with Lea and Isa at the mansion. Isa takes the news bemusedly while Lea accepts it happily. Xion has noticed of late that there’s already a black and white cat who has been hanging around the mansion as well. When she points it out, Lea insists that they catch him. An hour later, with one of Isa’s garden beds destroyed, Lea has the yowling cat contained, and Xion has her dog.

After taking them both to the vet, Xion names her puppy Pumpkin because that’s the plants he helped destroy. Lea names the cat Cat, which Xion rolls her eyes at. Isa comments that ‘Cat’ is surely short for Catastrophe, and Xion formally dubs the name upon the cat while Lea pouts in the background.

* * *

 

Roxas goes back to the Destiny Islands again, and again; Xion is happy to visit Naminé, and Roxas sometimes needs to hold her hand just to get through the dark portal.

Sora is warm and welcoming, and just as peppy as Roxas remembers him. There’s a new set to his shoulders though, and his eyes are no longer weightless, but Roxas just thinks that is what their journeys have done to them. Sora is so gentle with him, without seeming to be, and even though a part of him seethes at it mostly he appreciates it. Kairi eases their interactions when she’s around, and Riku never lets either his girlfriend of boyfriend out of his sight for long, hands skating their shoulders and waists.

With each visit Roxas is less hesitant to come back; with each visit he feels like maybe, actually, he and Sora can be more than a shadow of each other. That they could one day be friends. Roxas meets Sora’s smile with a smirk of his own, and looks forward to it.

He no longer has any problem texting him.

* * *

 

Lea and Isa dance around each other, to a song they’ve been turning to for their whole lives, but the steps are suddenly all different.

When they were kids, they were just friends, and when they fell to become Nobodies, they moved from friendship to whatever imitation of friendship Nobodies without hearts can participate in; knowledge of what to do guiding their movements rather than actual feelings. Now that they are whole Lea aches to shape himself around Isa’s new form, curl close to him and share their new found giddiness at being alive. This is all so new, but Lea doesn’t let that stop him, pushing forward with the same cockiness that has gotten him through so much. He drops kisses on Isa’s head, presses cold hands under his shirt as winter blankets Twilight Town, tangles their legs together to stop Isa getting out of bed in the morning.

It’s a journey, but they’re taking it together.

* * *

 

The time it snows in Twilight Town, Roxas stands outside and simply watches it fall. Hayner and Olette are already throwing snowballs at each other, but Roxas shoves his hands into his pockets and just watches as white slowly builds in drifts.

He never thought he would ever get to have this. Just – friends and playing in the snow. Just living.

“Roxas! Let’s call Naminé and Kairi over! They’d love it!”

Roxas looks at where Xion is running up to him, already digging her phone out of her pocket, laughing.

“I don’t know if they’ll love it – the Destiny Islands are pretty warm. I don’t think they get snow there.”

“Exactly! It’ll be great!”

Xion already has her phone next to her ear, and Roxas listens to half her conversation. She’s so happy. She has her girlfriend and her friends, and Roxas feels so full just buoyed on her excess energy, her laugh filled with joy as she tells Naminé about the snowman they can build.

“Kairi says that Sora and Riku can come as well!”

The gears start churning in his head. Sora and Riku…

“Come on – let’s get started on a snow fort so we’ll have a leg up on the others when someone starts a snowball fight.”

Xion links an arm around his, her cheeks flushed with the cold. Roxas presses closer to her, soaks up some of her joy, and thinks he might add some of his own to the mix as well.

* * *

 

Isa slowly expands the space he fills, and doesn’t feel guilty about it.

He claims more land for new garden beds. He decides where furniture is placed in the newly cleaned up mansion. He tells Lea to back off when he snips a little too close, touches a nerve that’s too exposed. He consistently places himself strategically around Roxas and Xion, and slowly both of them grow used to him. It’s a slow process, but Isa is used to tending plants that takes months to flower.

* * *

 

They’re all invited to Ven and Vantias’s seventeenth birthday, and they arrive wrapped in cloaks and scarfes which they quickly drop for the Land of Depature’s hot summer. They’re the first ones there, and Xion grabs Roxas and Vanitas and Ven and takes them all up to the peak of the mountain. Ven shows off some of his newest tricks, Vanitas tries to top him by showing them how he’s figured out how to slip into the ground like a Shadow or a flood. Roxas laughs as he bends into a beam of light and teleports to the top of one of the mountain. Xion challenges Ven to a spar, and Vanitas uses his shadow sneakiness to come up and sit next to Roxas. From up here, they can see the courtyard and all the people in it. Roxas elbows Vanitas when they see Sora, Riku and Kairi arrive, and challenges him to be the first to arrive back at the courtyard. Vantias grins at him, teeth sharp and shiny, and leaps off the mountain.

Roxas takes a short cut and glides down alongside Ven and Xion, and all three of them beat Vanitas to the bottom.

* * *

 

Lea finds a new rhythm, settles into gratefully. There’s always something new when he wants it, a new world, a new dish to eat, a new way to find to tease Roxas and Xion, a new way to fluster Isa. But he’s always craved stability, peace.

He finds it in morning coffee with Isa, afternoons with his friends, days spent without the looming threat of danger over their heads.

* * *

 

Xion feels so full with all her friends, all her experiences. Good memories slowly overlay the bad, until she can recall her past but it no longer thrusts herself upon her. She can corral them and visit them when she needs to, but there’s no need to think about them every day. They’re irrelevant to her life now.

She has Naminé and Roxas, and Lea and Isa, and all her friends, throughout all the worlds. She has a purpose in school, and in the work she does in Twilight Town and in other worlds, clearing them of lingering Heartless and Nobodies. She scratches her head over books with Roxas, writing down questions to ask Aqua when they see her next.

She’s not waiting for things to fly apart anymore. She’s certain that they won’t.

* * *

 

When Roxas goes to the Destiny Islands now, he isn’t hesitant about trying to find Sora.

Sora shows them the highlights of Destiny Town, Riku makes them all lunch, Kairi is an ever cheerful presence, and Naminé will always let them look at her latest projects. They spar on the play island and if Roxas thinks about the past there, it’s almost always because he’s busy kicking Riku’s ass.

Kairi has come into her own with her light magic – she’s probably better at him at using it now. And she’s found some new tricks that she shows him too, and Roxas learns it all eagerly. These moves are no longer for his desperate survival against strong enemies, but for play, for showing off and excelling because he can.

Days are so much sweeter with his friends by his side.

* * *

 

Lea ruffles Roxas’s hair and Roxas grins at him, happy, alive, here.

They go on missions together, but nowadays all of them are decided by the two of them, and always include helping people – they’re working because they want to help, not because they want to further some shadowy goal. It’s thrilling to pit themselves against strong enemies, to fly through their limits, to come out victorious.

They’ve always been a great team, and Lea is so grateful that they can have this time together to prove to each other just how good they are.

* * *

 

Isa and Xion understand each other in a way the other two can’t.

Both of them were taken, used, thought of as things and nothing else. Xion thinks she might like Isa’s dry wit, the sarcasm he drops to counter Lea’s overly peppy jokes, the fun that he pokes at those he feels close to.

Xion finds him alone in his garden and helps him, pulling up weeds and inspecting leaves for any damage. Mostly they’re quiet, but Isa sometimes tells her facts about the plants, how to care for them and why he planted the ones that he did. Xion will ask him questions about school, about their past, about _life._

The trust they build between them is something that she cherishes.

* * *

 

Lea is always there to listen to Xion; he’s the one who advised her about her first date with Naminé, he’s the one she went to when she had a nightmare and woke up choked and afraid that everything was going to be ripped away from her again. Lea had a younger sister, before; when he had only ever been Lea, when the horrors of the world were still a mystery to him.

Xion is quiet and loud and always speaks her mind, is always there to tell him when he’s being an idiot, when she thinks he’s shooting himself in the foot with whatever new thing he wants to do. Sometimes he thinks that he leans on her just as much as she leans on him, but Xion’s confidence has gotten so strong that Lea doesn’t think anything can shatter it now.

He’s so proud of how she’s grown.

* * *

 

Roxas spends time at the mansion now, studying at the big table that someone somehow lugged into the main room, sunlight spilling over his shoulders. He and Isa are never truly at ease when they are alone with each other, but they’ve reached a compromise. Someday, they might call each other friends. Now, Roxas just considers it an achievement that he’s even considering that.

He’d finally made himself face down Isa with no negativity in his heart. He’d said:

“I don’t think I can ever forgive Saïx. But… Isa is another story.”

Isa had smiled, and Roxas knew that everything was going to be okay.

* * *

 

Xion loves her friends, feels like she can talk to them about anything, trusts them with her life; but still, there is something different in her relationship with Roxas.

Roxas was always there, from her very first true memory. He pulled her forth from Sora’s heart, he _saved_ her, he gave her shape in the first place, they grew and fought and were twined together and pruned apart. He’s her best friend, and she’s his. Xion depends on him for reassurance, for a safety net, for fun and her happiness – she can’t imagine life without him. They already have a plan for their own apartment by the end of the year, living together on their own terms, because they _chose_ to.

No one tells them what to do now.

* * *

 

Lea sits on the bent tree and watches the sunset, all his friends behind him laughing and playing on the beach. The tree dips slightly and he looks over to see Isa, his blue haired turned dark in contrast to the setting sun. Lea looks at him and his heart aches; they’ve been through so much together, but even so, nothing has ever managed to tear them apart.

He looks up at the star shaped fruit on the tree, and grins.

He hadn’t expected the paopu fruit to be so sweet; it almost matches Isa’s kiss.

* * *

 

Isa buys the ice cream for all of them, and when he gets to the top of the clock tower he’s greeted with cheers. Hayner thanks him when he gives him an ice cream, Pence grins at him, Olette licks it immediately and exclaims at how much she likes this flavour. Roxas grabs it off him, Xion takes it politely, and Lea grabs his wrist so he can lick both the ice creams that Isa is still holding. Roxas and Hayner make disgusted sounds, and Xion just laughs at his expression.

This is his family now. It might look strange to anyone else, but he chose it – and they chose him.

* * *

 

The first tattoo he gets is the VII of his former number. A sign of his past, and a reminder, inked on his left shoulder. A man named Lloyd with hair almost as shockingly red as his own gives it to him, quiet and concentrating. He does not ask the meaning behind it.

The second tattoo he gets is a vine of moonflowers, flowering over his right shoulder and down his arm. The ones on his shoulder are closed, but the ones further down are in full bloom. It’s only slightly symbolic.

The third and fourth and fifth tattoos he gets are ones that he doubts anyone but him would know the meaning of. A snowflake, a closed book, a single flame, dying out with no fuel to keep it going, scattered on his upper thigh.

He gets a single chakram on his lower back and then goes back later and adds the blade of his Keyblade to the design. He puts a seashell on his ankle and a blue sea salt ice cream on the underside of his forearm.

They’re all reminders, of the good, of the bad. This history is a part of him. It only feels right to have it written across his skin.

* * *

 

Xion plays in the sand on the play island, digging through it to find shells and show them to Naminé. Naminé tilts her head and whips out her sketchbook to start to trace out the edges of the shell, how they curve together. Xion looks at her and wonders if Kairi will show her how to chain them together in a star.

She’s not afraid of being forgotten, anymore. She knows that her friends will always hold her in their hearts; their adventures have welded them together. Even when she thought she was lost, Roxas was still able to call her back. Her friends will always be there for her; and she will always be there for them.

* * *

 

Roxas can still channel light like no human can. He has a heart, and it is whole, filled with light and dark, but his body is not human. The replicas are very, very good imitations, but imitations they still are. Roxas does not mind that. He has never been human and he likes what he has now, a body and friends and the ability to twist himself into a beam of sunlight whenever he wishes.

His anger now only bubbles when he pays attention to it. What happened to all of them wasn’t fair, but they all got their happy ending eventually. He’s still upset about it when he thinks about it, but there’s less and less reason to think about it at all. Not when they’re all moving on, time folding in as eventually he forgets the sharpness and the rawness of those emotions.

He was so alone, and now his family is so large that he doesn’t think he’d ever be able to get rid of all of them. He’s surrounded by people who care about him, for who he is, not what he is. He has an open future, and he only has to do what he chooses to do.

He can’t imagine anything better.

**Author's Note:**

> This series honestly started as a way to try and reconcile the last few scenes of KH3 everyone on the beach together, and Roxas and Xion sharing ice cream with ISA? What??? I couldn't wrap my head around it... Nomura left everything off screen, so my main goal with this fic in particular was trying to reconcile that scene with how everyone felt about everyone, and with how I felt about everyone. This was made more difficult since I don't particularly care about Lea, Isa, or leaisa, but I managed anyway. I hope you liked the result!
> 
> [Tumblr](https://oathkeeperoxas.tumblr.com/)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/oathkeeperoxas)


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